WILMINGTON — Bruins centerPatrice Bergeronwas named the NHL’s No. 2 Star of the Week ending on March 3, the league announced Monday.

Bergeron had points in all four games he played, registering two goals and five assists over the span. The reigning Selke winner also had a plus-6 rating. On the season, Bergeron leads the Bruins in both assists (13) and points (18) and is tied with linemate Tyler Seguin with a plus-15 rating.

The first star of the week was Max Pacioretty(four goals, three assists), with Minnesota goalie Niklas Backstrom getting third star honors.

While there has been talk out of Vancouver about the Bruins having dirty players, members of the Canadiens said Thursday that their rivals are not dirty.

“No. They play a certain way and I think that’s why they’re successful,”Max Pacioretty, who had his season ended last year by a shove from Zdeno Chara, said when asked if he finds the B’s to be dirty. “To some extent, I wish we played a little more like them. Maybe not as much as they do, but they’re definitely an intimidating team to play against. They have so many guys who can step up — I’m not talking about fighting — I’m talking about physical. You watch the games recently in the NHL, and there’s not many pretty plays happening. They’re all tough, grinding goals, and a big body presence. I think that’s why they’re successful this year.”

Defenseman P.K. Subban said he has not seen former world junior teammateBrad Marchand‘s hit on Sami Salo, but that he does not consider Marchand or the Bruins to be dirty.

“It’s tough,” Subban said. “There’s a fine line now when you’re throwing hits, so you’ve just got to pay attention to it.”

Said Subban of the B’s: “They’re in your face, you know what I mean? They’ve had a lot of success over the year. They’re Stanley Cup champions, and they’re playing some good hockey this year. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing something right. Whenever you play them, you know they’re going to be in your face, they’re going to finish their checks and they’re going to work hard.

“They’ve got some tough guys on that team. Some real tough guys. They play the game hard. Our team, we’re not built to kind of brawl it out every night. We’re going to stick up for each other as a unit as a group.”

It goes without saying that the Bruins-Canadiens rivalry has lacked the fireworks it had last season. There have been only two fights, and, at last count, zero criminal investigations. That’s quite the departure from what we saw last season.

Count Habs forward Max Pacioretty among those who has no problem with that. The Connecticut native was the center of attention in the rivalry last season. It all started when he celebrated his Jan. 8 game-winning goal in overtime by shovingZdeno Chara. He then found himself in the middle of it again when he jumped former college teammate Steven Kampfer in a scrum on Feb. 9.

Of course, the most memorably part of last season’s rivalry came when Chara shoved Pacioretty into a stanchion at Bell Centre on March 8. The play was highly controversial and ended Pacioretty’s season.

So by comparison, the 23 year-old finds this season’s tamer edition of the rivalry to be a relief.

“It definitely is,” Pacioretty said Thursday. “That’s in my past, and hopefully it’s in everyone else’s as well. I’m just looking to help my team win hockey games. Especially against a top team in our conference, I want to do whatever I can to help, and I’ve got to put the past behind me.”

Pacioretty was suspended for three games Monday for the hit in which he targeted the head of Letang.

“To me, it resembled a little bit the hit that Savard took from Cooke a few years ago,” Julien said when asked about the play. “It was almost identical, but that’s the league’s decision to make.”

Savard is not playing this season due to post-concussion syndrome. He played in only 25 games last season before suffering his most recent concussion.

Pacioretty might be known best for the shove into a stanchion he took last season from Bruins captain Zdeno Chara. While there was a criminal investigation on the play, Chara was not suspended.

“[It] certainly doesn’t have any links to what happened to him last year,” Julien said of Pacioretty. “That’s two totally different things. He was on the receiving end of one and was on the giving end of another. The league chose to make the rule on that, and that’s where it ends.”

We’ll keep this is short as possible in an attempt to finally put this ridiculous topic to bed. Quebec’s director of criminal prosecutions released the following statement regarding the criminal investigation on Zdeno Chara‘s hit on Max Pacioretty last March:

“After carefully examining all the information provided in this affair, the (office) is not reasonably convinced it could establish evidence of guilt.”

People found it surprising when Habs forward Max Pacioretty, who suffered a wrist injury earlier in the week, took the ice for Wednesday’s morning skate. What was even more surprising was that Jacques Martin then said he’d be a game-time decision for Wednesday night’s game against the Flyers. The surprising news day regarding the young Habs winger ended with Pacioretty not only playing, but scoring twice in the Habs’ 5-1 win (the victory perhaps the biggest the biggest surprise of all).

That means that, assuming he didn’t re-aggravate anything, Pacioretty will be in the lineup Thursday against the Bruins, making it the first time he’s faced the B’s since March 8 of last season. That would be the last game he’d play that season, as a shove into the stanchion from Zdeno Chara at Bell Centre left him concussed and a fractured vertebra.

Pacioretty travelled with the Habs in the first round of the playoffs, so he’s been to Boston since all of the Chara/Mark Recchi hullabaloo. The last time he played at the Garden was the Feb. 9 fight night between the Bruins and Habs, which the B’s won, 8-6. Pacioretty jumped Steven Kampfer in the second period of that game, after a Brad Marchand hit on James Wisniewski caused fireworks between the two teams. Pacioretty’s actions drew the attention of Chara, who came to the defense of Kampfer.

Chara didn’t say much when asked about Pacioretty Wednesday, saying he was just excited for the games against the Canadiens.

In wake ofZdeno Chara‘s March 8 hit on Max Pacioretty in Montreal, police said a criminal investigation would be tricky at the time given that many of the people they’d need to speak to had seasons to finish.

Now that the season is over, it appears that Montreal police still intend to speak to Chara about the play, which sent Pacioretty’s head into a stanchion and left Habs fans calling the cops. The investigation will be conducted to determine whether there was criminal intent on the part of Chara, who had a history with Pacioretty due to runs the Habs rookie had taken at the B’s captain and his defensive partner on Feb. 9 in Steven Kampfer.

According to CBC News, Sgt. Ian Lafreniere has indicated the investigation is near completion, but that they still need to speak to Chara.

“We haven’t met Chara, we don’t have his version of the facts, and also at the end of it, [a report is] going to be presented to a crown prosecutor, and this is the person who will decide whether there will be some accusations,” he said.

Chara, who was given an interference major and tossed from the game, was not suspended for the play, and Pacioretty missed the rest of the season with head and vertebrae injuries. Pacioretty recently expressed his frustration with the Bruins winning the Stanley Cup given that he felt the Canadiens could have beaten the B’s in the first round if they had a healthy roster, one that would have included him had the play not occurred.

The play and the different reactions led to extra attention being placed on Chara, as well as the rivalry between the two teams. Prior to the March 24 meeting between the two clubs (their first meeting since the Pacioretty incident), multiple members of the Bruins suggested the injuries to Pacioretty weren’t as bad as initially stated, suggesting embellishment on the part of the Habs. Pacioretty had tweeted from a movie theatre days after the hit, which led to some questioning his concussion, as people with severe concussions generally can’t be around bright lights. After the B’s blanked the Habs on March 24, Mark Recchi, who most famously called out the Habs, said he had done so to create a distraction, thus taking pressure off of Chara.